London, July 12 - Pakistan has said that Osama bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda leaders were not in the country and hence the US missile attacks in the country were futile, a media report said Sunday.

'If Osama was in Pakistan we would know, with all the thousands of troops we have sent into the tribal areas in recent months,' Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik told The Sunday Times. 'If he and all these four or five top people were in our area they would have been caught, the way we are searching.'

He added: 'According to our information, Osama is in Afghanistan, probably Kunar, as most of the activities against Pakistan are being directed from Kunar.'

Though the US does not directly acknowledge the missile attacks on Pakistani territory by drones aircraft, Pakistani officials say over 40 attacks have been carried out by US drones in the past 10 months, killing hundreds of people.

Malik described the attacks as a waste of time as the Al Qaeda leadership was on the other side of the border in eastern Afghanistan.

'They're getting mid-level people not big fish,' he said.